


Exile

by YourBones



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angry Din Djarin, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Baby Yoda - Freeform, Clan Mudhorn, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Crying, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Din Djarin angst, Din Djarin cries, Din is emotionally destroyed, Din snaps, Djarin Clan, Drunk Din, Drunk Din Djarin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endor, F/M, Female original character - Freeform, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Good Parent Din Djarin, Grogu - Freeform, Grogu is gone, Hurt Din Djarin, Hurt/Comfort, I will never emotionally recover from the Season 2 finale, Jedi, Luke Skywalker - Freeform, Mandalore, Mando, Men Crying, Original Character - Freeform, Planet Endor (Star Wars), Sad Din, Soft Din Djarin, Spotchka, Star Wars - Freeform, The Mandalorian (TV) References, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2 Spoilers, The Mandalorian (TV) Spoilers, grogu djarin, sad fic, the mandalorian - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29697006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourBones/pseuds/YourBones
Summary: Din sinks to his knees, cheek pressed to her abdomen. His arms link around her hips and he cries into her softly. Her heart twists as she watches him. In the wake of Grogu's departure, The Mandalorian is in ruins before her.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Exile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wordscarvedbywolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordscarvedbywolves/gifts).



Clan Mudhorn has gotten smaller by one.

She thought Endor would be a good place for them to self-exile—a quiet, secluded, thickly-wooded moon in the farthest corner of the galaxy. Nobody to hunt, nobody to gawk at them, nobody to ask where Grogu went.

Maybe she was wrong.

The stay was only supposed to be for a little while, to heal. But it's been weeks.

They stay in one of the tiny treehouse villages that adorn the woods. The nest-like, thatched cabin clings to a wide old evergreen tree. It's warm and comfortable inside. There's a table, chairs, and a welcoming cot that's big enough for the two of them, though Din doesn't sleep much these days.

When she wakes in the middle of the night, she reaches a slender arm to his side of the cot and is never surprised to find him gone. When she sits up in bed, blanket clutched tightly to her bare chest, she squints through the dark to the open door. He stands on their little porch outside, his back to her. He's looking down at the little metal ball, rolling it around through his worn, callused fingers. She sighs shallowly and watches him. Concern plagues her soft features.

He's out there for so long that she forces herself to lay back down. She stares up at the ceiling until sleep overtakes her.

She wakes again when he slips back into the cot hours later, but she doesn't open her eyes.

He pretends he's slept through the night, and she pretends that she doesn't know the truth.

She knows he doesn't want her to worry.

Lately, his brown eyes are despondent, and sacs of fatigue hang under them. His face looks haggard, and his patchy, dark scruff is greying. He doesn't talk much—never has—but this is different.

When she takes him on walks through the woods, he trudges on, dispirited.

She tries to keep him busy, but he just isn't there.

When they sit down for supper, he stirs and moves his food but never really eats it.

Sometimes, when they're together in bed, his mind is elsewhere. These intimate moments end in a flurry of apologies from Din, flustered and stressed and choking out an excuse as to why he can't. She can hear a lump forming in his throat, creating a hoarse tinge to his already rough, low tone. She presses her cool lips to his warm temple and tells him not to worry.

He has abandoned his Creed, or at least it seems that way. This is the first time he has been around her with a bare face. Since that fateful night on Moff Gideon's cruiser, Din hasn't put the helmet back on.

It sits on a table in the darkest corner of the room. He hasn't touched it.

The Mandalorian is a shell of his former self. 

He's come home drunk a few times—and Maker, she wonders how he even got up the ramshackle wooden ladder to their hut without killing himself.

She's dying to confront him but wants to give him time to grieve, time to mourn.

The loss of Grogu has devastated him.

_

Nights go by and nothing changes.

He stumbles in one evening, late, eyes glassy. He reeks of spotchka.

His head spins. 

She hands him a glass of water. He mumbles his thanks, gulps it down, eyes half-lidded.

He sinks into their cot and she tries not to hover, but it's hard to hide her concern. She runs her hands through his untidy mess of dark, short curls, gently asking him where he's been all night. He looks down, quiet, tears in his eyes.

She looks at his hands. They're curled around the tiny metal ball—a relic of Grogu, of their time together.

"Din," she says softly, getting on her haunches. She cups her hand over his wrist.

His lungs empty with a shuddering sigh, eyes not leaving the metal ball. He looks up at her, a minute later, lip slightly trembling.

His words are slurred, groggy. "Where did he go?"

Her eyes are glassy, too. She can feel the impending tears stinging behind her eyes when he says it.

Before she can say anything, this fragile moment is lost. He mutters something about spotchka, a cantina, mumbles through a  _ dank farrik _ , and slumps his broad, imposing frame against her.

She gets him comfortable in the cot. His tan skin is hot under the pads of her fingers—that uncomfortable, dizzying kind of warm that one feels when they've drunk too much. His breath is stale with alcohol.

She carefully peels off his armor and slips off his boots. She gently takes the metal ball from him.

She pushes the heavy blanket on the cot away, giving him room to cool off. She turns him on his side and cups his rough, stubbly cheek.

"Sleep," she murmurs.

She douses the light and crawls into the cot with him but is careful to give him space. He turns on his other side to face her and brings her close, arms tangled around her small form. She can feel his short bursts of warm breath on her cool forehead.

Din's heart hammers against her, throbbing with spotchka-drenched regret and neglected sorrow.

"I love you," he mumbles into her neck, drunk.

Normally, she would give him an amused smile, tell him she loves him too—but she's too concerned. 

She runs her fingers over his bicep as he spoons her, trying to give him comfort, but she can hear his breathing. He sounds like he's one shallow breath away from bursting into a torrent of sobs. He kisses her with warm, damp lips, then rests his cheek on her head. 

"It's okay," she coos.

He never does cry, but he mutters something before he slips into an alcohol-induced slumber. She barely catches it. 

"Don't leave."

He sleeps, then, and sadness swells in her chest as she lays beside him in the dark, awake.

She begins to wonder if this is the only time Din ever really sleeps.

_

The next day at dusk, it rains.

Thunder rolls through the bruised sky. Seething, swollen black clouds bubble across the orange horizon, blotting out the binary sunset. Sheets of rain slice through the sky. The air smells clean and damp, like summer. Tiny dots of firelight from the surrounding huts light up the rainy night. A wind exhales through the towering trees.

Frogs sing a symphony that cuts through the impending dark. 

Din stands by the open window, listening.

She makes dinner and watches him, knows how much is weighing on his mind. 

Where has little one gone with the Jedi? Will he be safe? Will he remember The Mandalorian that loves him as his son?

There's also the Mandalorian throne and his lack of ship. He hasn't mentioned either, and it's been weeks.

She knows he wonders if he will ever see Grogu again—and if he does, will it be too late?

Despite the layers of armor, the brooding disposition, he’s known as the most fearsome killer in the galaxy. 

But Din is only a man. 

Grogu will outlive him, and perhaps by the time they're reunited, Din will be too old to stand, or walk, or to understand.

The Mandalorian turns and reaches for his blaster. It rests on the corner table beside his helmet, which now has collected a thin layer of dust.

He holsters it and heads for the door as a clap of thunder booms overhead.

"Where are you going?" she asks. 

Din doesn't look at her.

She drops the plate she was preparing on the table and goes to him. "There's no way you're going out in that." 

"I need to clear my head."

"I don't think—"

"I'll be back."

"Din, you can't keep going out every night like this," she says.

He says nothing.

"You can't keep running away."

"From what?"

"You know what," she says, stern but caring. "We need to come to terms with this."

He doesn't speak.

"You're out all night," she says, "you come home incoherent, you haven't eaten or slept in weeks—"

He looks away. He looks ashamed.

"I'm saying this because I'm worried. I love you. Grogu loves you."

Din freezes.

"And he would hate to see you this way," she says. "He wanted you to be safe. He wanted you to be happy."

He turns his head quickly to look at her. It's a habit, she notices, he has picked up from wearing a helmet with no peripheral vision most of his life. 

Din looks utterly exhausted. She has never seen him look worse. 

"Hey," she says softly, coming to his side. 

"I'm fine," he grumbles, his voice growing weaker. Moisture pools at the edges of his eyelids, brown eyes gloss over with tears as he shudders silently. He turns to leave. "Just—just need to—"

She stands on her toes, taking his scratchy face in her hands. He stops. His own hands reach up and grasp her wrists weakly.

The rain falls harder on their little enclave of the lost.

"Hey," she says again, tone soft and calming against the storm outside. "It's okay."

Tears fall, silent and steady as he closes his eyes. She brushes them away with her thumbs. 

His hands drop from her wrists, and he hugs her. He goes boneless against her as a sob wracks his frame.

It's a strange feeling—she's been with him for months. They've been intimate, expressed their feelings for one another. But he's never been this open.

She wonders if he's ever cried like this in front of someone else.

He's always been the stoic Mandalorian, the enigmatic bounty hunter—the impenetrable statue of Beskar that stalks through the streets of Tatooine or Nevarro. 

But not now.

Din sinks to his knees, cheek pressed to her abdomen. His arms link around her hips and he cries into her softly.

Her heart twists as she watches him. In the wake of Grogu's departure, The Mandalorian is in ruins before her. 

She runs her slender fingers through his dark locks to comfort him. 

"Din," she says softly.

Her abdomen is damp with tears. She rubs his back in soothing circles, in awe of the sudden outburst. She sinks to the floor with him, pushing stray tendrils of hair out of his eyes. They're quiet for a while as she comforts him, hugs him. Says soothing words.

They sit there, and she lets him cry. She wants him to get it out—all that pent-up grief and self-blame.

The rain fills the silence.

"He's gone," Din says finally. He's taken the small metal ball out of his belt. He looks at it, rolling it over in his hands. "He's just... gone."

"You'll see him again," she tells him, her voice hoarse with tears. "You promised. A Mandalorian never breaks a promise."

He nods, but it's weak and unconvincing.

"Hey," she says. "Look at me."

He does, trails of tears staining his cheeks.

"You will always be his father," she says. "Nothing is ever going to change that. No matter how far apart you are, no matter how many stars are between you—you're still family."

"What if he thinks—" The Mandalorian chokes through the words. "What if he thinks I abandoned him? What if he thinks that I just gave him away?"

Her heart aches when he says it.

"No," she says sadly. "He doesn't think that."

"Should I have let him go?" Din asks, voice groggy and thick. He pauses, exhaling a small, shaky breath. "I mean—did I do the right thing?"

"Yeah," she tells the careworn bounty hunter, blinking away her tears. "You did."

"Then why doesn't it feel that way?" Din says. He sounds angry. Angry at himself. "That Jedi protected him better than I ever could."

"Din, stop."

"You saw those dark troopers. One nearly killed me on my way to rescue him, and that Jedi destroyed them without hesitation," he says. "I failed Grogu."

"You didn't fail him," she says, running her hand through the side of his hair. "Don't talk like that."

Din doesn't say anything.

"You saved him from the Empire," she says. "You gave him a father. You gave him protection, a clan, a home. You brought him to his people. You never failed him."

"I know he's powerful," Din hangs his head, "and that he's safe with the Jedi, but he's a Mandalorian. He belongs here, with us."

"I know you miss him, and so do I, but it's not safe for him here. Not yet, at least," she says. "Someday, he'll be with us again."

She gently tips Din's chin so he looks at her.

"Knowing what is best for him and understanding that you can't protect him from the universe... it's one of the hardest things in the world," she says gently.

"I don't—I don't know what I'm doing," Din says.

"What parent does?" she asks. "We'll do what we need to do until Grogu is with us again."

"I can't rule," Din says. "I don't even know where to start."

She strokes his cheek.

Din shakes his head. "I don't want any of it. I just miss the kid."

"I know," she says. "I know. You won't face this alone."

"I can't do this," he says, rolling the metal ball between his index finger and thumb. "I—I can't let him go."

"You already have."

He looks up at her.

"You let him go even though you knew how much it would hurt," she says. "You gave up everything—your career, the Creed, the Crest, and Grogu—for the betterment of your son's life, knowing that someday, he would go off with his kind. And you did it because you love him wholeheartedly."

She sighs.

"Loving him and knowing when to let him go—well," she says, "it was very Jedi of you."

A shadow of a smile tugs at the side of his mouth. Din takes her small hand in his larger one. 

"You will see him again. I promise," she says. She smiles through her tears. "We're going to get through this, together. I'm not a Mandalorian, but I will always keep my word."

He says the words again. Quiet, low, rough. Fragile.

"Don't leave."

She kisses The Mandalorian's forehead. He brings her close.

Thunder rumbles above them. The rain continues to pour. 

"No matter what happens," she murmurs into the warm crook of his neck, her voice drifting through the dark, "I'll be here."


End file.
